Just curious if anyone has an explanation for why people do this. On my team, I run a P/P Emperor Crab with Snap, Healing Wave, and Shell Shield (pretty standard combo). But a number of times, I've run up against people using a crab with Surge instead of Snap. Inevitably these fights come down to crab vs. crab where I always end up winning because Surge can't do enough damage through the shield to overwhelm my heals. Anyone have any idea why people would use Surge over Snap? I get that it's cool to have an always-first attack on an otherwise VERY slow pet, but to me it just doesn't seem that would ever be worth the loss of offensive power. The appeal of the Emperor Crab for me is that it can do so much damage with Snap while still being very durable.

A number of reasons. I run a great team with a Spirit Crab with surge, but I get snap with it, so not quite the same thing. Still, surge might be the best thing that team has against an elemental. And hitting first is nice on multiple levels. A shielded Spirit Crab (and, one would assume, Emperor Crab) will take down Rags, go toe to toe with a direhorn, and... well, no... Spirit Crab is good vs moths, but probably not the aquatic version so much. But still, if your BG has elementals and direhorns running rampant, I could see someone throwing a crab in there with a priority attack.

Hmm, the elemental thing I get, but my bg doesn't seem to have too many of those. We do have a lot of Direhorns, but I really have a hard time seeing a crab with surge pull out a win over a direhorn spamming trihorn charge. Even with shield, the direhorn's going to do a ton more damage. I've used my crab on direhorns a few times, but really just as a throwaway or to finish off a weakened one; even with snap, my crab cannot match a direhorn 1v1 because I lose too many turns from Horn Attack to keep my defensive moves up reliably and still deal damage.

Ugh, Horn Attack. I get SO hosed by that. The Trihorn Charge nerf will be nice and all, but jeez...with Primal Cry and Horn Attack, I highly doubt we're going to see less Direhorn teams (or Direhorns on teams) in 5.4. If the "lose turn Stun" proc was reduced to, say, 33% or 25%, I think that would be more tolerable. I doubt that will happen though.

Wolfson wrote: Anyone have any idea why people would use Surge over Snap?

Snap is useless in pvp. We dont see critters in pvp at all, but we can see a lot elems, like Lil'Ragnaros, and Flying, like Ravens or Moths. So against Flying you just make your crab 3 times useless - more dmg from flying atacks, less dmg for flying, flying always faster, Snap has chance to miss. If you start from shield against flying - you just lose more than half hp, before you even try to do damage. From another way Surge with 100% hit chance halfes Alpha strike dmg, goes before Cocon strike, etc. Same against Rag, what usualy starts from Trap+Sons. If you shielded first round, Ragnaros just magma wave your backline pets or crushes your shield by Sulfuras+Trap. From another way 2 surges before Rag moves underground and 3d right after his comeback - GG. That is reason, why noone uses Snap just for chance 1 in 100 games meet team with crab uses Snap. Any way if it happens, for example, I play emp crab + yellow moth right for that cases. I remember may be 1 game in 5.2 or 5.1, what finished crab vs crab and I lost.

Depends how you use your crab. If you're using it with mechanicals, for example, you'll probably want surge to counter elementals. But if you're using it on a sandstorm team, snap is superior to surge because it deals a lot more damage through sandstorm.

Also, I've had a lot of luck in PvP pairing a P/P emperor crab with snap, healing wave, and shell shield with an S/S quiraji guardling (crush/sandstorm/blackout kick) and an H/S restless shadeling (arcane blast/plagued blood/phase shift). Between sandstorm and having arcane blast to counter fliers, there's no need to go for surge over the higher damage from snap. Plus snap counters critters, which are rough for both the guardling and the shadeling. So to the above poster, snap definitely isn't useless in PvP.

didn't see this mentioned: surge has 100% hit chance as opposed to snap's 95%, besides always going first. yeah 5% isn't much, and there are plenty of hit debuffs, but still a 100% hit ability is nice to have

You don´t pick pets or abilities in a vacuum. Most people choose them for what they have seen the most of.

Surge is a no-brainer if you have seen direhorns, Lil Rags or even some moths.

And in reality, looking at it objectively. I can see no reason why someone would take snap over surge on a P/P pet. Not only is it strong against what you probably see more of in pvp.. but it also counteracts one of your weaknesses overall ( low speed).